Sweep success: Giants edge Tigers to win World Series

San Francisco's Sergio Romo reacts after striking out Detroit's Miguel Cabrera in the 10th inning to end Game 4 of the World Series on Sunday night.
(
Matt Slocum
)

DETROIT — Finally pressed in the World Series, the San Francisco Giants finished off a most unexpected and stunning sweep.

Marco Scutaro delivered one more key hit this October, hitting a go-ahead single with two outs in the 10th inning that lifted the Giants over the Detroit Tigers 4-3 in Game 4 on Sunday night.

Nearly eliminated over and over earlier in the playoffs, the Giants sealed their second title in three seasons when Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera looked at strike three right down the middle for the final out.

On a night of biting cold, stiff breezes and some rain, the Giants combined the most important elements of championship baseball — great pitching, timely hitting and sharp defense.

Series MVP Pablo Sandoval and the underdog Giants celebrated in the center of the diamond at Comerica Park after winning six elimination games this postseason.

“Tonight was a battle,” said Giants star Buster Posey, who homered.

Advertisement

“And I think tonight was a fitting way for us to end it because those guys played hard. They didn't stop, and it's an unbelievable feeling.”

Cabrera delivered the first big hit for Detroit, interrupting San Francisco's run of dominant pitching with a two-run homer that blew over the right-field wall in the third.

Posey put the Giants ahead 3-2 with a two-run homer in the sixth and Delmon Young hit a tying home run in the bottom half.

It then became a matchup of bullpens, and the Giants prevailed.

Ryan Theriot led off the 10th with a single against Phil Coke, moved up on Brandon Crawford's sacrifice and scored on Scutaro's shallow single. Center fielder Austin Jackson made a throw home, to no avail.

Sergio Romo struck out the side in the bottom of the 10th for his third save of the Series.

The Giants finished the month with seven straight wins and their seventh Series championship. They handed the Tigers their seventh straight World Series loss dating to 2006.

“Obviously, there was no doubt about it. They swept us,” Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. “So there was certainly no bad breaks, no fluke.

“Simple, they did better than we did.”

An NL team won the title for the third straight season, a run that hadn't occurred in 30 years. Some find the streak surprising, considering the AL's recent dominance in interleague play. Yet as every fan knows, the club that pitches best in the postseason usually prevails.

Until the end, the Tigers thought one big hit could shift the momentum. It was an all-too-familiar October lament — Texas felt the same way when the Giants throttled them in 2010, and Tigers knew the feeling when St. Louis wiped them out in 2006.

Howling winds made it feel much colder than the 44 degrees at gametime. Two wrappers blew across home plate after leadoff man Angel Pagan struck out, and fly balls played tricks in the breeze.

The Giants started with their pregame ritual. They clustered around Hunter Pence in the dugout, quickly turning into a bobbing, whooping, pulsing pack, showering themselves with sunflower seeds. A big league good-luck charm, Little League style.

And once again, San Francisco took an early lead. Pence hit a one-hop drive over the center-field fence for a double and Brandon Belt tripled on the next pitch for a 1-0 lead in the second.

The next inning, Cabrera gave the Tigers a reason to think this might be their night.

With two outs and a runner on first, Cabrera lofted an opposite-field fly to right — off the bat, it looked like a routine out shy of the warning track. But with winds gusting over 25 mph, the ball kept carrying, Pence kept drifting toward the wall and the crowd kept getting louder.

Just like that, it was gone.

Cabrera's homer gave Detroit its first lead of the Series, ended its 20-inning scoreless streak and reaffirmed a pregame observation by Tigers Hall of Famer Al Kaline.

“The wind usually blows to right at this time of year,” Kaline said.

In the fourth, Max Scherzer and catcher Gerald Laird teamed on a strike ‘em out-throw ‘em out double play. Scherzer yelled, first baseman Prince Fielder clenched his fist and the Tigers ran off the field on a chilly, windy, rainy evening. At last, it seemed, all the elements were in their favor.

Trailing for the first time since Game 4 of the NL championship series, Posey and the Giants put a dent in Detroit's optimism. Scutaro, the NLCS MVP, led off the sixth with a single and clapped all the way around the bases when Posey sent a shot that sailed just inside the left-field foul pole for a 3-2 lead.

Posey, the only Giants player on the field from the starting lineup in the Game 5 clincher in 2010, almost tripped nearing first base and he watched the ball and began his trot.

Detroit wasn't about to go quietly, however. Young, the ALCS MVP, made it 3-all with another opposite-field homer to right, this one a no-doubt drive.

Local duo joining overseas exhibition excursionFilippo Swartz went to Italy, where his mother was born and he spent the first year or so of his life, every summer until he had to stick around to be a part of summer football activities for the Longmont High School team. Full Story

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

Most people don't play guitar like Grayson Erhard does. That's because most people can't play guitar like he does. The guitarist for Fort Collins' Aspen Hourglass often uses a difficult two-hands-on-the-fretboard technique that Eddie Van Halen first popularized but which players such as Erhard have developed beyond pop-rock vulgarity.
Full Story